


Speechless

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 21:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: “I’m glad I can be here, with you, Dai-chan.”“Me too, Satsuki.”





	Speechless

**Author's Note:**

> for dw user swankitty! prompt was 'here, with you'

When they were kids, Daiki had always had something to say. So did Satsuki, but she didn’t usually blurt it out; she waited until the most opportune time, sensed with what she’d later call woman’s intuition but what Daiki calls paying attention. He’s tried to imitate her and failed, given up or gotten bored when things were slow and he could practically hear Satsuki’s brain going beside him like a computer with an insufficient fan. 

She’s never told him he won’t catch up, though it’s not out of respect for her pride. She likes to see him try. (And it’s not like she can match him at basketball, but they still play together sometimes, one-on-one or the two of them against two of their friends.) Daiki still does not have perfect timing with his words, but he’s settled for good enough. He can say the right trash talk under the hoop (though he’s always had better senses about everything on the court). He can tell Satsuki he wants to be with her, until she understands the words he’s giving her but teases the exact ones she wants out of him. 

But right now, she’s left him speechless.

* * *

They used to go exploring in the hills. When they were in kindergarten, the hills had seemed like mountains, the insects exotic aliens, the mossy rocks new territories to explore and roadside shrines brimming with ancient secrets. They would make up stories and challenge each other, fall down and scrape up their knees. Daiki would cry and Satsuki would drag him back home to her grandmother, and she would clean him up and they would all eat lunch together on the porch. 

Daiki was always the sentimental one, crying when his cicadas died and pouting when the days grew short enough that it couldn’t escape notice that the summer was ending. But that’s not fair; Satsuki was just sentimental in a different way. Rather than clawing the mood away to regret and the things she couldn’t have again, she would wait until they crossed the wooden bridge over the creek, their feet just too long to fit on a single slat.

“I’m glad I can be here, with you, Dai-chan.”

“Me too, Satsuki.”

The kind of response that had flowed easily from his mouth when things had been simpler, between them and the world, and between each other, when it had just been the two of them and the world. It’s not the kind of answer Daiki could have given when they were in high school, but Satsuki never would have said that, then, even after they’d mended and repainted their fences. There were no bridges to walk over, the way back covered by overgrown trees they’d forgotten how to crawl and shimmy under. And they were facing the other way by then.

Daiki has wanted to say it since then, but the words trip up his tongue and Satsuki doesn’t wait for him to say them. She can hear them in his hand covering the shape of her hip, the sentences that draw a neat outline around them, the stretch that turns into dropping his arm over her shoulders and pulling her closer and then pretending it’s not awkward to walk down the street that way.

* * *

She is here, with him.

Daiki is a pro basketball player, drafted to play in the fucking NBA for the Cavaliers in a city he still can’t point out on a map of the United States three years ago, rookie of the year and runner-up to league MVP, two deep playoff runs under his belt (or, more accurately, the elastic waistband of his shorts). Satsuki was supposed to be starting law school at a national university on her way to a prestigious career, but she is sitting in his living room, reading a magazine on his couch. 

“Satsuki,” he breathes, as if anything louder would break her gaze on his face.

She smiles. “Hi, Dai-chan.”

“What the fuck, Satsuki,” he says, sitting down next to her because he doesn’t know what else to do. “You could have told me--I could have met you at the airport—”

“My flight got delayed,” she says, setting the magazine on the end table next to her. 

She embraces him, holding him tightly in her arms like a piece of furniture she’s trying to glue back together and set in place, and Daiki holds her back, like he’s not going to be the reason her glue job doesn’t work (until his arm starts to cramp up and he extracts himself).

“When do you have to go back?” he says.

“Next week, but I’m not going far.”

“Don’t you have law school?”

Satsuki sighs, a wordless way of saying how silly Daiki’s being. “If I’m going to be your agent here, I need an American law degree.”

“But you said you’d gotten in to Todai—”

“I applied to Japanese schools as well, but just because I got in doesn’t mean I’m going to go.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

Satsuki shrugs, but her smile breaks through the way she always seemed to pop up onto the school roof when they were at Touou.

“Worth it.”

“How?”

“I’m here, with you.”

She says it freely, but her fingers curl around Daiki’s knee, like she’s recalling curling them around the railing on the bridge all those years ago, when the place was different and the two of them were different people, just a couple of rough-and-tumble kids. They won’t be together, in the same house or even next door, maybe not in the same state, but they’ll be able to call each other on normal phones and maybe visit each other when they can string a few days together, and they can talk when he’s feeling off his game or she’s so done with studying she wants to drop her laptop out a window. 

Daiki covers her hand with his, and she flops against him. Even in the humidity, he won’t tell her to get off just yet.

“I’m glad you’re here, with me, Satsuki,” he says. 

“Me, too, Dai-chan.”


End file.
